He went to keep Hilary term ‘on a horse richly caparisoned, his grooms walking beside him,’ all his officers ordered to ride on horseback, ‘as in the olden time.’
No doubt the good Dorsetshire country gentleman, the lover of sport and of horse-flesh, who had been accused of regaling his four-footed favourites on wine and cheese-cakes, had a mischievous pleasure in seeing the uneasy and scared looks of his worshipful brethren, some of whom perhaps had never sat on a saddle till that day.
At all events, poor Judge Twisden was laid in the dust, and he swore roundly no Lord Chancellor should ever reduce him to such a plight again. Shaftesbury lived at this time in great pomp at Exeter House, in the Strand, and was in high favour with his Royal master, who visited him at Wimborne St. Giles during the Plague, when the Court was at Salisbury.
At Oxford, when Parliament sat, he made acquaintance with the celebrated John Locke, who afterwards became an inmate of his patron’s house, his tried friend, and medical adviser.
The situations of public employment which Shaftesbury obtained for this eminent man were, unfortunately, in the end, the source of difficulty and distress rather than advantage. The history of the Cabal, of which he was the mainspring, and of which he formed the fourth letter (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale), would suffice for his biography during the five years of its life. But it must never be forgotten that to Shaftesbury England owes the passing of the Habeas Corpus Bill, as likewise one for making judges independent of the Crown.
The reader must seek elsewhere, and elect for himself, whether Shaftesbury was or was not guilty of all the plots and conspiracies against King and country of which he has been accused. To the Duke of York he made himself most obnoxious. He was instrumental in establishing the Test Act, which made Roman Catholics ineligible for public offices; he was, moreover, the champion of the Exclusion Bill, and opposed James’s marriage with Mary of Modena; and there is little doubt that the Duke did all to undermine Shaftesbury’s favour with the King.
There was always an element of humour mixed up with his doings, even when fortune frowned on him. Finding that the King meant to unseat him from the Woolsack, and that his successor was already named, he sought the Royal presence. The King was about to proceed to chapel. The fallen favourite told Charles he knew what his Majesty’s intentions were, but he trusted he was not to be dismissed with contempt. ‘Cod’s fish, my lord,’ replied the easy-going monarch, ‘I will not do it with any circumstances that may look like a slight,’ upon which the ex-Minister asked permission to carry the Great Seals of Office for the last time before the King into chapel, and then to his own house till the evening.
Granted permission, Shaftesbury, with a smiling countenance, entered the sacred building, and spoiled the devotions of all his enemies, during that service at least. Lord Keeper Finch, who was to succeed him, was at his wit’s end, believing Shaftesbury reinstated, and all (and there were many) who wished his downfall were in despair.
The whole account is most amusing and characteristic, including the manner in which the Seals were actually resigned, but we have not space to say more. Shaftesbury was indeed now ‘out of suits with fortune.’ In 1677 he, with other noblemen, was committed to the Tower for contempt of the authority of Parliament, and although other prisoners were soon liberated, he was kept in confinement thirteen months. On regaining his freedom he was made Lord President of the Council, but, opposing the Duke of York’s succession, was dismissed from that post in a few months. In 1681 he was again apprehended, on false testimony, and once more sent to the Tower on charge of treason, and that without a trial.
His papers were searched, but nothing could be found against him except one document, ‘neither writ nor signed by his hand.’ The jurors brought in the bill ‘Ignoramus,’ which pleased the Protestant portion of the community, who believed the Earl suffered in the cause of religion.